I Feel a Catholic Sense of Freedom

by Dr Raymond Perrier · July 12, 2015

The joke is told of the Methodists who arrive in heaven and are being shown round by St Peter. They notice a large walled-off area from which they can smell incense and hear (bad) singing.

A woman enjoys her meal at the Denis Hurley Centre in Durban. A new collaboration with a neighbouring mosque means that the centre can now extend its feeding scheme. (Photo: Kobus Faber)

�Who�s in there?� the Methodists ask. St Peter explains: �That�s where we put the Catholics so they can�t see out. They would be so disappointed to discover that they were not the only ones here.�

I hope that your laughing at this joke shows that we have come a long way since 50 years ago when Vatican II had to tell us that Christians of other traditions are indeed our brothers and sisters and have �access to the community of salvation� (Vatican II document on Ecumenism �3). In fact the great Ecumenical Council�which included Orthodox, Anglican and Lutheran observers�challenged us also to move closer to non-Christians by saying that the Church �rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions� (Vatican II document on Other Faiths �2).

While not diminishing the differences between religious groups, we have made great steps towards recognising and building on the similarities. That is seen most clearly by finding ways in which we can actually work together.

Up and down the country, and across the world, we encounter ordinary and extraordinary examples of such collaboration. We share church buildings and welfare projects and schools and training programmes and political platforms. And that makes sense since, after all, we share the same towns and countries.

At the Denis Hurley Centre in Durban, which I serve as its director, we are especially committed to such collaboration since it was Archbishop Denis Hurley himself who at Vatican II and in Durban led the Church in showing how we can work together with our neighbours beyond the Catholic ghetto.

In some sense we have no choice. We are as close to the Grey Street mosque as we are to the Emmanuel cathedral, and most of the local businesses who can help us in our work with the poor are run by Muslims.

For me the key is to shift the burden of proof. The question is never �Why should we work with Protestants?�, but �Why shouldn�t we work with Protestants?�; never �Can we work with Hindus?�, but �How can we work with Hindus?�. And then the possibilities open up.

So when a group of Muslim welfare organisations started taking an interest in our feeding programme for the homeless, it was only a matter of time before we were able to launch a joint Muslim-Christian feeding programme, combining volunteers, resources and expertise (as you might have seen on The Southern Cross� front-page photo of June 24).

Did we have to make compromises? If �compromise� means surrendering fundamental principles, then I reject this �win-lose� way of seeing collaboration. Think of the word instead as being a �com-promise��a shared statement of faith. In fact the Spanish word �compromise� means �commitment�.

So I am proud to say that at the Denis Hurley Centre we now have a kitchen which can be called halaal. That requires a small amount of extra care on our side in terms of sourcing ingredients and handling meat. But it brings a significant benefit in making our Muslim volunteers feel comfortable, and in providing food for our Muslim homeless that respects their needs. Why would we not do that?

I am aware of my personal journey out of the Catholic ghetto: from a very Catholic family and Catholic primary school with almost no non-Catholic friends; to secondary and tertiary education in Anglican institutions where I moved from tolerance to grudging respect to admiration; to collaboration in development work with other Christian and secular organisations; to now working with rabbis and imams and gurus as much as I do with priests and pastors.

For me the more confident I am in my Catholic identity, the more comfortably and creatively I can work with others.

So are there any limits to such collaboration? I recently discovered a good friend of mine in Britain is training to be a humanist prison chaplain. A quarter of people in prison tick the box as having �no religion� but they have no less need of the pastoral and human support that a chaplain brings.

I found myself wanting to protest that this was a secular intrusion into religious space. But then I remembered my strong belief that there is no secular space that is distinct from religious space: all of it is God�s space. Or, to quote the Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins: �The world is charged with the grandeur of God.�

So if a humanist chaplain can help a prisoner deal with his loneliness or a Muslim counsellor can help a drug user face his addiction or a Quaker nurse can bring God�s healing to a sick woman, that is not surprising. God�s power and love is bigger than any categories that we might use to describe it.

And, as a person who believes in God, I must also believe that it is God�s power that is at work even through someone who does not acknowledge that power as coming from God.

The Spirit blows where it wills!